I crashed late, and woke up early. I can’t hardly sleep on the road. There is too much “new” out there that I haven’t seen it seems, and the sounds of trains and traffic on roads that I don’t know the sounds of always seem to make sure I don’t sleep in. I gotta admit, I do like experiencing mornings in new places. Its maybe my favorite thing. Plus, I was travelling with my daughter, and It wasn’t very warm. If it was just me alone, I’d have loaded up the bike and headed down the road, but you can’t do that with your daughter. I found some coffee, scouted out a place to eat breakfast, and soaked up a beautiful morning…
I’ve always thought that to get the most out of a road trip, you need at least 3 days on your bike. The first just slowly but steadily drains all the bullshit out that you may have accumulated. All the petty things that you get worked up about at work, dumb situations or just life in general. Things that don’t matter. The 2nd day, you start to feel like your self again. The third day is all about pure inspiration; Fuel for the fire. We were on that 2nd day, and I was loving it.
I found a couple of cool spots I wanted to see: The first, was a roadside attraction that opened at 9 that featured Ice at the bottom of a cave. The 2nd was the worlds first power generating nuclear plant from the 1950s. We had about 350 miles to travel today, up through the sawtooth mountains. I figured it would that might get chilly, and I had no idea how long it would be till we dropped off the mountains into the warmer valleys.
Bri was cold and so we rolled out about 10ish when she was decently warmed up. She’d put her swimming suit in the tent on top of her dry clothes, and her pants were wet. More dangers of travelling with her father — If Mrs Zip was here, she’d have noticed that. She wasn’t, so we improvised. I’ll be damned if I admit that to Mrs Zip.
We rolled into Shoshone, ate at a 103 year old railroad restaurant that supposedly one of my favorite authors (earnest Hemingway) used to come to after hunting, got gas, and headed toward the ice caves. We got there about 10:30…
The next tour was in 45 minutes, and it was a 45 minute tour. We passed, but took some pictures. Next time. I already knew I’d be back this way…
It had warmed up, so we raced into Sun Valley. The roads and weather were damn near perfect.
Sun Valley was a bit yuppie and liberal for my tastes. It reminded me of park city Utah, where Rich left wingers make their utopia, not realizing there is a whole other world out there. It was cool, but I can only see so many esoteric art shops before I kinda want to vomit. There was one cool place here, we found out in Shoshone at the cafe:
Turns out, one of the greatest Authors of the 20th century lived here; Earnest Hemingway. I’ve read the old man and the sea and a few others of his books, and I’ve always loved his writing style. He made his home here not long after the fall of Cuba and eventually died here. We found his grave site in the cemetery in the middle of town, took a picture and headed on up the incline into the sawtooth mountains.
I bought a gopro this last winter. I’ve mounted it to my bike (which vibrates way too damn much), and my daughters helmet (which flops back and aims at the attention of a 13 year old). I won’t post any of that here, other than to say I’ll keep working on video and photography.
The Sawtooth Mountains are awesome. Lots of peaks over 10,000 feet, and the road and valleys have a ton of turns that just made the ride more than enjoyable. Just by typing this, I want to go back and ride them again.
We took a couple pictures at the summit:
Beautiful ride. I wished I’d have taken more pictures.
We got gas in Stanley, Talked to some friendly locals along the way, and took the twisty road beside the river on the way to Challis. Another lower in elevation, but awesome stretch of road. Got a burger in Challis, and raced to Arco to get gas again. I saw more interesting things a long the way that made me want to go back this way again. I will.
Lots of open road and a few of Idaho’s natural surprises. I opened up the throttle and really enjoyed the 75 miles toward Arco.
The first Electricity generating Nuclear Power plant was just south of Arco Nevada (EBR1). I really wanted to see it. It closed at 5, and because of our late start, we missed it by 15 minutes. It barely mattered. A) I’ll come this way again and B) this trip wasn’t about my own geeky desires to see Americas Historical Firsts: it was about time with my daughter, and at this point she was a bit tired after 320 miles and I knew she’d be stoked to stay in a real bed at a motel with a pool. After some navigational issues, we raced into Pocatello.
The pool was ice cold at the motel 6, so we just hung out. She played Pokemon on her Nintendo DS, and I watched shark tank. We had both enjoyed the day. I was proud of her– for the miles we made, she hadn’t complained once. Tomorrow was day 3, and day 3 was always the best. I searched out backroad on my laptop for the way home, a place to eat breakfast and was asleep by 10. She was asleep at least an hour before I was.
Day two:
1 day, 1 state 350 miles.